The Brave Babes Battle Bus - New Year? So, Let's Go Up A Gear!

[ChristMouseTimeMistletoeNoWine]

Hello, tis me, Mouse (normally Mouseface but I'm wearing my festive name )

Welcome to the Brave Babes Battle Bus, to a place of solace, support and sanctuary, if that's what you seek of course. It's also a Bus full of bloomin' chatterboxes, waffling on about life, love and all things from school reports to laundry!

The journey into 2013 is going to be an ass kicking one as we're moving up a gear to give the WineWitch a bloody good slapping, and the BoozeBeast a kick in the bollo.............

Some of us drink in moderation, some of us drink. Some of us are sober, some of us are trying so very, very hard to be.

Some of us have been dry for days, weeks, months and some of us years...... some of us are just starting out and are scared of what stopping drinking means. It's not forever, it's just for today if that's what you want.

We have a saying on the Bus One Day At A Time. Or ODAAT

Take each moment, each day and each blip as it comes. The support on this Bus has kept me from ruining my life time and time again. The experiences of others shared here has helped me to change the way I see alcohol, the way I see what it does to me.

Although some Babes have been here a while and kind of 'know' each other, we all have different lives, different roles to play, different places to sit on the Bus, but we ALL have or have had abusive relationships with alcohol and we're here because we want that to change; for the better.

Everyone is welcome here so don't be afraid to just jump right in and say hi. Post as much or as little as you like!

So, come say hi, grab a seat, an eggnog (non alcoholic of course ) and a mince pie, or chocolate chip cookie, and meet some lovely, genuine people who are just like YOU.

Also, HERE IS THE PREVIOUS THREAD with a link in the OP to the first ever thread, and the reason why after more than two and a half years, this thread is still here, supporting those in need.

Welcome new babes

mouse Ta love- early days of sobriety for me. Like the sound of that, could do with it being a little easier though. I want to go to a meeting on monday and I reminded myself that if I drank I would have to 'fess up. I'm such a coward that that kept me straight.

thurso you must feel stabby,bet you've worked really hard. Write down and keep a copy of any dodgy info the tutor hands out. It's not right that your hard work should be affected by the tutor's poor teaching.

makeme the board is great, read back over a few hundred threads. The wine witch is the creature who shows up in the evening and sticks her icy fingers into you. She wants you to drink. We want to kick her icy ass.

curry easy, take out the Larkin poetry and put the laundry down

holly I've just been and had a look at Smudgie's photos, hope you don't mind. What a lovely, handsome boy he is. Kind of envy you going off to bed with him and your kindle. My little cat isn't allowed upstairs because she prances about maiowing at 4 in the flipping morning.

well it's our first night with him so he'll probab;y drive us mad all night. Still, we want him to feel safe. Oh, it feels so nice to be tired properly on a saturday night!!

thurso aaahh that must be so frustrating!

day 1. yes, I can control it usually, but it takes a lot of effort. and my body needs a break after Christmas and New year.

Morning brave babes, woke up with ds with no hangover on a Sunday which feels great, altho if he could sleep past half 6 sure I would feel better! thurso what an awful situation, is there no way another tutor could look over everyone's work & salvage the situation someway? purple well done for beating wicked ww, hope you had a nice relaxing evening & have a lovely day with your dc today MA well done in sobriety & boot camp, I've not weighed in yet but feel I've not been so good as overcompensating for not drinking & still being in hols, starting for proper tomorrow. holly had a wee sneaky peak at Smudge, he looks a gorgeous boy, hope first night went well.
mouse hope things continue improve for you & all in the mouse house. I can totally relate to where you are coming from with exp. I was in very similar destructive relationship before having my dd & then this continued once she was born. Was I had her something snapped & I left exp when dd was 1, so so glad, can't begin to think how awful our lives would be had we stayed. Now tho my dd (13) seems to think her df is great & me & my dh have to impose rules, curfews etc so we come across as the bad ones at times. So hard at times.
Hope all babes managed ok last night either beating the ww or whatever is right for them.
Arghh have complete dread for work tomorrow & interview at 8:30!

ohclutter preparation is the key, the more you have prepared the more confident you will feel in answering any questions put to you. It's good that you have it first thing to get it out of the way for the day, good luck.

Well done koti yes re bootcamp - I've put on half a pound _ stuffing myself with chocolate and nuts all week. Have been full of cold and sinusitis and feeling truly dreadful, have been eating through it - as soon as I'm well I will be living on soup and the 30 day shred!

So glad you had a lovely birthday treat Koti. Hope you have a lovely day today xx

Clutter sorry to hear of your past struggles. I understand what you mean about having to be 'the bad' guys. Me too. ExP lets them eat loads of sweets (yet it's me that has to take them to the dentist!), lets them stay up late and swerves the responsibility of getting them to do homework. Deep sigh. But I'd rather have them for 90% of the time and have the extra work at being The Big Stick. Time will judge. Kids work these things out for themselves in the end.

Green Try not to worry about your eating whilst you are ill Lovely. It's more important to feed yourself and get better. If you are feeling dreadful you need to be nice to yourself.

Well, I had a horrendous night. Firstly couldn't get to sleep, despite taking Night Nurse, I was still looking at the clock at about 2pm, and then only 'napped' on and off all night. Whilst napping, I had the worst sort of dreams. At one point I was dreaming that there was a man standing over me on my bed! Woke up feeling really scared. I often (whether drinking or not) get really vivid dreams so not worried that I was hallucinating because as soon as I was properly awake I knew it was just a dream. Plus, got the most awful 'sweats', they are disgusting! Still, tonight should be better. Will get some Kalms or something. I've decided to switch days around and use today to get Christmas decs away and all school stuff sorted and take DC out tomorrow. I'm too tired today to enjoy a day out properly and I don't want to spoil the outing by being grumpy and shouty.

Well, DC have just arrived home. I got the biggest cuddles. Bit sad as the arrangement had been that I was supposed to be having a birthday meal on Tuesday with DC (and ExP) but not now apparently. On the up-side, I think it's because DD has badgered ExP into buying my an iPod Classic for my birthday and now he's broke!! Still, didn't really want to be sitting on my own on my special day Managed to give him back the whiskey, though!

Ho hum. Off to organise last minute homework (DD), present putting away (DSs) and clearing the last of Christmas away 'til next year.

Happy Sunday to everyone! xxxxxxx

only day 2 and already I'm wavering.

we appear to be living in a bug-infested house. DDs bedroom crawling with tiny critters. I know alcohol won't help, but it would help take my mind off it for a bit...for anyone interested in the awful details I started a thread in childrens health.

woken up at the crack of dawn (well, 8am ) on a sunday by a hysterical DD...

I was only thinking about you v. the bugs yesterday. I thought they must have cleared up as you hadn't posted anything. Poor DD! Poor you! xxx

purple not sleeping is awful isn't it? I also have the dream about someone in my room. I think it's worse after drinking.

sometimes I wake up screaming my head off, it terrifies poor DH!

well done for getting rid of the whiskey

joey you keep talking about controlled drinking but recently your posts sound more like you are drinking more often than you really want to. So if you don't want to drink today can you take it right back to basics, my lovely?

Make that decision. Don't think about next week, tomorrow or even this evening. In fact, don't think about it at all. As soon as that voice goes in your ear, bat it straight out again. Stick your fingers in your ear and go la la la if you have to (I have done that before, believe me).

If you are ever going to drink again, you can make that decision later, or another day. Just stay with the moment and the cravings will pass.

Remember, drinking never really makes us feel better, it just makes us better are coming up with creative 'reasons' to excuse it x

Thurso I read that book The Slap and I thought it put me right of Australians (or at least suburban Australia). It's not like they portray it in those Home or Away property programmes. I didn't really like any of the characters.

Well done all those who got through Saturday night, the weekend is nearly behind us.

< passes round halos for polishing >

Today is 'See the Results Sunday' - how do you feel about drinking/not drinking. Any impact on physical and/or mental health yet? It's time to take stock of the week and decide what to do differently (or the same) next week.

faire yeah I was going to do dry January, but you're right about coming up with creative 'reasons' !

DD must be feeling more stressed about the bugs than me, but nobody suggests a 10 year old deals with stress by having a drink!

Morning, tis me, Mouse

Sorry to read that some of the Babes have germ or critter infested houses and children!

Holly - how was Smudge? I love kittens, they are so cute. If they stayed kittens, I'd be grand. I don't do cats

She's an outdoor cat, love it in the country as she has 'fresh meat' on tap . Poor wee mices.

Clutter - I posted under a different name last year in the We Believe You MN rape campaign and was even interviewed by The Independent. I wanted to tell part of my story to show others out there that you CAN survive what life throws at you, if you get out in time. By that, I mean get out when you know that if you don't, you might not.

I will feel guilty for putting a very young DD through all of that for the rest of my life. I can;t take any of those memories or visions away from her. He did so many bad things, he was so very cruel and I let him. I stayed.

I've posted about him and it before on this thread so won't go into it again because this thread is not the right place, I just wanted you and any other Babe on the Bus or not, to know that you can do it. And, if anyone wanted to talk about anything off here, please PM me.

Koti - sorry I missed your Birthday, when was it?

Dreadful night here... we watched Bridesmaids which was really funny actually and had a lovely evening as Nemo went to bed nice and early.

However, as the evening went on, I started to feel sickly so took myself to bed. DH did the first shout for Daddy Bear, I did the second and was met with a very confused Nemo

He asked me who the man was in his room. (I do believe in ghosts, Butt totally appreciate that not everyone does and that's cool. DD has a past history of seeing and speaking with them when I've been with her) He asked me what the man was called but I couldn't see or feel anyone.

Sometimes, my Grandad sits on the end of his bed and talks to him, he used to smoke very heavily and I can smell very strong cigarette smoke in Nemo's room when he's there (no-one smokes in this house) and he'll happily chat to him.

He wasn't upset, just looking at the corner of his room. Anyway, after a while, he asked for DH so I went to get him and they went to sleep in his bed. All is fine this morning, I was up, showered, fed, watered and dressed by 10am after DH got up with Nemo at 8.30am.

I'm feeling very positive today, I want to start to clear the house. Tidy and get things in order.

I'm also trying to read back in bits and say hello to newer Babes I seemed to have missed. xx

Jango - how did you get on last night?

Gugg - how was last night in end?

Tiger - how are you today? You said life was getting more stressful, you okay? Anything you want to talk about here lovely?

Stronger - as others have said, the WineWitch is a real piece of work who is rather like a stealth assassin! She'll sit quietly near to you, waiting for your resolve to waver just the slightest amount and then BANG! She slaps you round the chops with a bottle opener, grabs your hand and makes you pour yourself a nice big fat glass of vino collapso.

We're all trying to kick her boney arse into touch, no matter where we are in our quest for sobriety - sober, not sober, almost sober, sometimes sober etc..... you get the idea!

Greeny - 30 Shred nearly killed me! But that was before I knew about my disability. Seriously, Jillian is a bitch. Have you done it before? Man she is so, so, so super fit. Cowbag!

Koala - how are you doing lovely?

IsinDe - can you please do a Mr. Ben for me? You know, as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared and let us all know that you are at least still around xx

I better shut up before you all get even more sick of me waffling on. Today's plan is to get a few jobs out of the way, then take the Wolf and FishBoy out for a walk along the not yet flooded canal later on, after putting the roast in to cook. Then stop off at the lovely pub along the way back for a pint and some crisps as is our Mouse House Sunday Walk Tradition and then home for a nice roast pork dinner, with another snuggle night and catch up on all things TV after bathing Nemo and getting DD sorted for school tomorrow...... I have no idea if she even goes back tomorrow or not as preschool start Tuesday.

Mr. Selfridge starts tonight I think, I fancy that but DH rolled his eyes, (I kindly rolled them back this time) so I'll be recording it I think!

Bye for now Babes - stay strong xx

PS - Soma - I have a post I'm putting together to try and explain how I got to where I am today and more importantly, why. xx

Hey babes feel like deep fried dog shit today, got a lousy stinking cold. Good to see so many of you getting your 'boing' my lovely friend bought be some covonia over to try and make me feel better but alas it has alcohol in so it is berroca and beechams for me. Was supposed to be tutoring two tutees today but would not be a good idea to pass this lurgy on so I shall be mainly spending today getting my house in order!

Stay strong babes! Today I will not be drinking xxx

morning all
east smudge is lovely. hope he had a good night.
Well Day 6 - is it? - and must admit to feeling a bit meh. No sign of the glowing skin and clear eyes yet and feel a bit tired and crabbit. Today is a big trigger day as DH is out and on a sleepover at work. this is always a reason for me to "celebrate" and treat myself to a bottle of wine and some peace and quiet. Am trying to prepare for this with other "treats" but low-fat fruitcake and a face-pack just ain't thrilling me some how.
joey are you ok?
mouse ds saw spirit people often when he was younger...lots of details and always the same. He wasnt afraid, apart from the red-haired one who was "mean", but he said they asked him to do things like looking after people etc. Sometimes he saw them in the day but knew they were spirit people not RL people because they felt different. I was cool with it. and he doesn't seem to do it now.
Forcing myself out for a walk soon to try and get myself back on positive track.

Good afternoon all. We had an 'eventful' night with gorgeous cat . he decided to lump himself on the bottom of our bed, so i decamped to ds bottom bunk to give dh a bit more room. Was woken up at 5am by DH shining a torch at me sayin 'he's got out' Apparently dh heard a noise so went down to investigate, smudge ran past him, down to the end of the garden (150 foot long!!) jumped over the fence into next doors garden, shimmied up the next fence and disappeared . I got up and was walking around in my slippers whispering 'smudgie smudgie' for about 15 mins, when i saw a big fat shadow - he reappeared, jumped down and casually strolled back in ! Couldn't sleep too well after that! Just been to collect my mum (this is a stately homes mother...) and she is downstairs with everyone, i can't handle her too often so am up here snuggling cat.

I think children do see spirits you know - ds certainly used to spend time smiling at the ceiling when he was 2 or 3.

I hope everyone is ok today. Stay strong all

Holly - glad you and Smudge made it through the night in one piece! and yes, I agree, children are more open to spirits because there's no fear. Only adults breed the fear IMO.

xx

Off out for food to roast xx

I'm fine mouse thanks for asking . Yay just worked outs smileys! My stress is pretty run of the mill, money & family issues but suppose usually I just think sod it at -4- 8 and open a bottle. Or I'm struggling with a hangover and have lost the ability to think anyway. Tonight will be my 7th dry night. First time I've gone so long in 2 years when I had a 6 week break. Sleeping getting easier. No weight loss. Possible better skin and brighter eyes. But that life is boring without my wine is looming. I will stick at it. I have to. I've had a fair crack of it but my health is starting to suffer. Good luck babes

Hugs Ma If only we could be re-programmed NOT to think of wine as a 'treat'. We know, in the sensible side of our brains, that it's not but....the the other side (don't know what to name it!?) insist it is! Hang on for all the other benefits, they will come. I was surprised that it took a good 4+ weeks for the palpitations to disappear on my last 'dry' stint. Just goes to show what damage wine/alcohol can do to a body.

Day 2 here and feeling tired and struggling a bit. Off to get a diet Coke from the fridge..... xxxxx